By ANDREA JAMES, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, December 6, 2007

A contentious plan to redevelop the site of Metropolitan Market on upper Queen Anne has been scrapped, and the new proposal will incorporate neighborhood input, two people involved with the development confirmed Thursday.

A local family has owned the property on Queen Anne Avenue North for at least 45 years and has recently agreed to sell it to a developer who lives in Magnolia, a family lawyer said.

The pending sale is a change from the family's previous plan, which was to allow a QFC supermarket to take the place of Metropolitan Market. Some residents complained that they did not want QFC -- a national chain -- to ruin the neighborhood's charm.

Metropolitan Market has been a part of that community since 1962, and it might remain so if the sale goes through.

"Joe Geivett has expressed a strong interest, and we are looking into completing his purchase of this property in the short term," said Irving Sonkin, the Bellevue lawyer for Queen Anne Properties LLC, a company created by the family solely to manage the property.

"If things go well, hopefully, if we complete a deal with Mr. Geivett, it will be done within the first quarter of next year."

Geivett is a developer who lives in the Magnolia neighborhood, west of Queen Anne, with his wife and two children. His company, Emerald Bay Equity, has placed earnest money toward the purchase in an undisclosed amount, Sonkin said.

Both parties have agreed not to discuss terms of contracts, he said, and the sale is not yet final.

The 43,200-square-foot property contains an existing Metropolitan Market, an apartment building and two single-family houses, one of which is used as an office.

The half-century-old buildings on the property need renovation, and the controversy began when the family sought to put in a large mixed-use development that included housing and a new grocery store.

Metropolitan Market had said that the new project would raise its rent too high, and QFC offered to come in, instead.

Earlier this year, the Kroger Co., which owns the QFC brand, halted plans for the site of a former Safeway store in Wallingford because of high construction costs.

That delay put the Queen Anne project in flux, and it lost an exclusive right to build on the property.

After the QFC deal "expired," Sonkin said, the family decided that "it was easier just to get out of it than worry about what to do with it."

Several developers expressed interest as buyers, but the family chose Geivett because they had confidence in him, he said.

Geivett, 38, has 28 projects around the U.S. Three are on Queen Anne and within 120 feet of Metropolitan Market.

"We just put this agreement together very recently. There's a lot of moving parts on it," Geivett said Thursday.

"We're working with Metropolitan Market to try and keep them. Metropolitan Market is working with us to try and stay."

Geivett has won favor with the community group Queen Anne Neighbors for Responsible Growth. That non-profit group, now with 2,000 members, was formed in 2005 to confront controversial development projects, including what it called "an oversized QFC grocery store."

"It's a good development, no pun intended," group co-founder Kemp Hiatt Jr. said Thursday of the pending sale. "We just don't want Queen Anne to turn into University Village; it's not a shopping mall. There are a lot of benefits to having small businesses here rather than just a series of national chains."

He said Geivett has shown an interest in preserving the charm and character of the neighborhood.

Geivett said he gets along with most neighbors, because "I listen to them and conform our project so that it's something that most people in the community like."